<p>According to a friend of mine, less than 1/3 of Americans aged 25+ have a bachelor's degree or higher... I later looked on websites and found similar statistics! How is this possible?!? It sure seems to me that almost everyone went to college. Can someone explain how this can be true? Or have I just been finding wrong inforation???</p>
<p>Just curious...if true, this comes as a major shock to me</p>
<p>Many people simply can’t afford to go to college. For others, life gets in the way - they get pregnant, they have to work to support the family, something. Some start college but fail their classes, or end up being unable to pay, so they never get their degree. Others just don’t WANT to go to college. It’s actually fine to decide that college isn’t for you…I guess it really depends on the situation.</p>
<p>I’m not sure, really, but if that’s the statistic you’ve been finding I suppose it’s true. I don’t, however, thinks it’s all that hard to swallow.
Well, first you have to consider the “Americans 25 or older” includes several generations of people. In years past college has not been a large of an option for high school graduates. It’s usually directly entering the work force or the military that most people took directly out of high school. Some people would go back for a degree but most would never get one. You may hear things like “college admissions is becoming more and more competitive” or “a record number of applicants have applied this year at school X”. The reason is primarily that with competition for jobs and such, college is becoming a more common option for highs school graduates. If you look at such statistics 25 years from now the numbers will be much different (though I’m sure will be well below 75%).</p>
<p>The second huge thing that would make this kind of statistic seem unbelievable is something called “selection bias”. The very fact that you would use a website like CC says something about you. You either come from a community, school, family, or other societal group where college is the de facto choice for high school grads. As if there was never any question: once you graduate you’ll be attending a college. The only question is where. Of course this may not be true for you but it is for many people who use this website (myself included). The selection bias comes in when you look around at the people you surround yourself with and see that they all are in a similar situation to you - they’ll all, or almost all, be going to college once they graduate. The statistic in reference is pulling from the entirety of the United States. There are vast populations of kids in inner-cities or in the extreme rural parts of the unites states for whom whether they’ll be going to college or not is not so straightforward. Or it may be just as clear as it is for us, just with a different answer: they will not be going to college when they graduate. The only question is if they’ll graduate at all.
Of course these kids don’t only live in the “inner city” or out on a farm or in a small town, I know several people who won’t be going to college as they want to join the military or immediately get a job. I know a few who have dropped out. However the vast majority of people I know will be going to college after they graduate as I plan to. So it kind of depends on who you associate with.</p>
<p>Though the 1/3 statistic is somewhat surprising to me as well when you hear about people with higher degrees than bachelor’s who find it near-impossibly to find a job (though they are different reasons for that, such as those people looking for a specific kind of job or level of job that has a lot of competition while they may turn down the first job offer they get because they see it as “beneath” them).</p>
<p>I think that the answer is a combination of the fact that the fastest growing segment of the population is over 45 (college was just not as universally accessable when they were growing up) and the fact that while many people enter college, a large percentage drop out.</p>
<p>Check out the graduation rates at colleges below the top 100. After all, that’s where most people end up going.</p>
<p>Data from the last census, 2010, indicates that about 28% of Americans 25 and older have a 4-year or more advanced college degree. That group, of course, includes a lot of people who are 60 or older who went to high school at a time when only about 12% or less of high school graduates went to college. It includes a large contingent of women even somewhat younger than that who were discouraged from attending college – for example, Yale did not accept women until 1969. It includes huge numbers of those who live in areas of cities (or country areas) where residents are poor and most are lucky to finish high school much less college. It includes a lot of people who started college but never finished. It includes a high number of people with associates tech degrees who did not go to four year colleges. It even includes some billionaires that dropped out of college to do something else (such as Bill Gates). In other words, based on everything included, 28% is probably quite high and in fact is the highest percentage ever in the US.</p>
<p>It sure seems to me that almost everyone went to college</p>
<p>1) People who live in larger cities, may have more college grads. So, if you live in/near a large city then that may be why you know many college grads.</p>
<p>2) Many people go to college, but never graduate.</p>
<p>3) If you don’t have many lower income people in your social circle, then you’re not really exposed to the general public.</p>
<p>You might live in a particularly affluent and/or education-focused area or simply not be looking hard enough. I though the same thing until I started looking–many people I know never finished their degree or took some classes at the local CC after high school before taking on full-time work.</p>
<p>we have over 350 million people. not everyone has the desire or the means to go to college. most jobs can be done without a degree.</p>
<p>that surprises me as well. I used to think that a college degree was required for most good jobs. but apparently not. my dad was interviewing some guys on how well they knew excel for his office. this former navy guy with no college degree apparently knew his excel better than these other guys who supposedly did a bunch of successful projects, had degrees, etc. now the former US marine has the job. go figure.</p>